


interview

by splashstar



Series: the first sounds of the future [3]
Category: Vocaloid
Genre: Anniversary, Betaed, Birthday, Eventual Happy Ending, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Interviews, Past
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-13 17:14:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29405370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/splashstar/pseuds/splashstar
Summary: Right from the day he was activated, he knew he was going to do the best he could. Every time he was given a song, I’d see this spark in his eyes. And everything was okay for a while.--meiko recalls the last fifteen years.
Relationships: Hatsune Miku & Kaito, Hatsune Miku & Meiko, Kaito & Meiko (Vocaloid)
Series: the first sounds of the future [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1900378
Comments: 3
Kudos: 10





	interview

**Author's Note:**

> today is kaito’s 15th anniversary (on crypton's calendar at least, it was on the 14th for yamaha) and i couldn’t not do anything for my best boy + i figured for someone who claims meiko is their favorite feminine crypton vocal, i don't write her very often lmao
> 
> i’m actually in the middle of writing another standalone thing before getting back to doing plot dev for ch 5 of the kailen fic,, but this is based off a script i wrote in 2019 that was the same sequence of events but in kaito's pov

Kaito had a rough start. No one knows it better than us.

Right from the day he was activated, he knew he was going to do the best he could. Every time he was given a song, I’d see this spark in his eyes. And everything was okay for a while.

We were both getting tons of requests from different producers, but we both quickly noticed that I was getting a lot more than him. At first, it was something we made fun of. Kaito joked sometimes about taking some of my requests to lighten my load. But a year passed, and...we found out why he wasn’t getting as much attention as me.

I guess it was just the way we were first presented that resulted in him ending up being what they called a “commercial failure.”

Let’s be honest--he was kind of a mess for a while.

He may be better about it now, but at the time, it seriously hurt him, and I saw that. That word, _failure_ , got burned into his mind. Every time we heard someone say it from then on, I’d see him cringe. I figured if I let him be, it would just damage his confidence even more and eventually ruin him. Some producers still came to him for songs--some more persistent than others--but when he wasn’t working on anything, I kept him busy so he wouldn’t think about it as much.

But even back then, we weren’t as...“popular” as we eventually got to be. The idea of being in a reality where an android can sing a song for you instead of a human was still a new concept at the time, after all. It wasn’t until Miku came along that things started to become what it is today.

I remember when they started talking about her. “The first sound of the future,” they called her--and she really does live up to her name, even now. It wasn’t long until all we were hearing about was how well-known she got to be. By then, Kaito was still hiding himself in the shadows, so they hadn’t met for a while. Somehow, though, Miku had heard of him, and I was the one she came to to ask about him since no one else would tell her anything.

I knew Kaito wasn’t going to like it, but I told her everything about what happened. After I did, she told me she wanted to use her own popularity to bring him back into the light. I encouraged her, but...even to this day, I’m not quite sure why. Maybe I wanted Kaito to be okay with himself again, and I would have regretted it if I hadn't gotten her to act on her feelings. Maybe it was more selfish on my part; maybe I just wanted to see that spark in his eyes again.

Sometime after that, Miku got the help of a producer she’d been working with, and they uploaded a video of her asking Kaito where he was and what he was doing through a song. And I showed this video to Kaito and explained what she and I talked about. I gave him the idea to respond to her. I said, “Sing something back to her!” He was nervous about it, but a few hours went by, and it turned out he did something. With the help of another producer, he sang an old song about eating ice cream, and at the end of the video, he invited Miku to eat some with him one day. Apparently, they'd been working on that song already and decided to release it early.

_Of course_. I didn’t know what I expected. He loved ice cream, but only a handful of us knew that at the time.

Eventually, that video got noticed by other people. Many of them praised his voice, and some even said that more people should know about him. But once that video reached Miku, _that_ was when things started to turn around. By around mid-summer, more and more people had started to come to Kaito for songs. Everyone in the office was just as surprised as he was. They saw how well he was doing all of a sudden, and they gave him another chance.

The more of us that got activated, the more exposure we got. It wasn’t long until Miku wasn’t the only one calling Kaito “nii-san.” We had our ups and downs, but it wasn’t completely fruitless. In fact, it kind of gave us a boost.

Some of us, like Miku, Rin, and Len, got updates quickly. They tried to update Kaito and me as well, but...we found out they cancelled it anyway. Kaito definitely didn’t feel good about it. I remember that day really well.

“I just want to sing,” he told me. “Sometimes I don’t even understand why they called me back.”

I put my hand on his shoulder and I said, “Don’t beat yourself up. It’s not your fault. We can still sing--we just have to use what we have for now.”

A few more years go by, and another new engine gets everyone’s attention. They surprised us, actually. They told Kaito and me we were both getting updates for real, and that they were going to get them done this time. When I looked at Kaito, I could tell he was trying not to get his hopes up because of what happened last time, but there was still this look in his eyes that told me he still really trusted those words.

At first, my update had a few issues, but it wasn’t anything that couldn’t be adjusted. But because of that, Kaito's update was finished first. He couldn’t easily sing as powerfully as before, but he was okay with that. It was a new him, with so many more possibilities. That spark in his eyes came back. I watched him struggle for seven years straight, and it was finally over.

So many people celebrated. His status as a “failure” started to dissolve, and when anyone tried to bring it up again, there was always someone defending him. It shocked him at first, but he was happy to know that there were people out there that cared about him that much.

The past was what it was, but now, we’re here. And he’s been a real trooper these last fifteen years. I’m proud of him for that. I guess we kinda switched places, but that’s fine. After everything he's been through, Kaito deserves that recognition.

But there's no way I could forget about the fact that he’s been in my corner since the beginning, too. He always has. He's the reason I know who and what I am in the first place, because he's the one who helped me figure that out. We’ve always had each other, and we always will, even when the day comes when the world forgets about our existence. Whatever happens, it'll be okay.

And...Kaito. I know you're gonna be listening to this, too. And I know you'll probably be crying by this point, but that's alright.

Happy birthday. Don't ever lose that spark, okay?

**Author's Note:**

> references:  
> \- [miku's video by tatsunami](https://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm1066613)  
> \- [kaito's response to that video by ice-p](https://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm1067989)
> 
> hbd kaito we love u (´∀｀)♡
> 
> also ty again to my betas for taking a look at this ily ([here's](https://archiveofourown.org/users/antwine) one of them hehe)


End file.
